NYC: 'Indies' back Carrion, paving a potential 3-way fight

Adolfo Carrion won approval as the Independence Party candidate. (Credit: AMNY)

The executive committee of the city’s Independence Party organization voted to endorse former Democratic Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for mayor, setting up a potential three-way contest if Carrion does not also win the Republican nomination. Can he win on Independence alone? “Yes, I think we can,” said Carrion, a former urban-affairs official in the Obama administration. He cited past...

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The executive committee of the city’s Independence Party organization voted to endorse former Democratic Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for mayor, setting up a potential three-way contest if Carrion does not also win the Republican nomination.

Can he win on Independence alone? “Yes, I think we can,” said Carrion, a former urban-affairs official in the Obama administration. He cited past successful fusion candidacies in the city. He said in his post-vote news conference of Mayor Michael Bloomberg that he’s been “by most measures a great mayor” in terms of encouraging investment in the city. Bloomberg won the last three mayoral elections with the R-I combination.

Leadership for the “I” line in the city has been more controversial than that statewide, having featured one-time adherents of the former New Alliance Party, which at one time included followers of the fringe figure Lyndon LaRouche.

Mindful of that, rival GOP candidate Tom Allon, who’s running on a resurrected version of the Liberal Party line, said in response to the endorsement:

While I have respect for Mr. Carrion and his desire to improve our City, I question why he, or anyone else, would accept the Independence Party endorsement.

As a ground-breaking investigation in the Daily News recently uncovered, a majority of Independence Party "members" do not believe they are affiliated with any party.

To these unwitting voters, they have chosen "independence" not the "Independence Party."

Furthermore, some leaders of New York's Independence Party, particularly Lenora Fulani and the late founder Fred Newman, have made such incendiary anti-Semitic remarks that anyone associated with them and their party should be asked why they would want to be affiliated with such virulent anti-Semitism, particularly in New York, the city with the second largest Jewish population in the world.

As the son of Holocaust survivors and a proud American Jew, I condemn Fulani and all those associated with the Independence Party who have not renounced these despicable views.

Mr. Carrion is a fine candidate and I welcome him to the Republican Party but I call on him, and any other leader seeking the Mayoralty or other citywide office in 2013, to tell the Independence Party that they do not want their endorsement until they rid themselves of anti-Semitic leaders and stop fooling their "members" that they are enrolling as "Independent" voters.

All the mayoral candidates should join me in this condemnation and boycott tonight's vote. Anything less is a vote of support for anti-Semitism and dirty politics.